Cube tap



May 8, 1962 J. SCHMIER ETAL 3,034,084

CUBE TAP Filed March lO, 1958 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 (PL F i. fw M j Fg. BY'HN C. TIMMINS May 8, 1962 1. scHMlER ETAL 3,034,084

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May 8, 1962 J. scHMlER ETAL CUBE TAP 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed March lO,1958 INVENTORS JACOB SCHMIER JOHN TIMMINS ATTORNEYS May 8, 1962 J.scHMlER ETAL 3,034,084

CUBE: TAP

Filed March 1o, 1958 5 sheets-shet 5 INVENTORS JACOB SCHMIER JOHN C.TIMMINS United States Patent 3,934,984 CUBE TAP Jacob Schmier and JohnC. Timmins, Allentown, Pa., as-

signors to Rodale Manufacturing Co., Inc., Emmaus, Pa., a corporation ofPennsylvania Filed Mar. 10, 1958, Ser. No. 720,174 3 Claims. (Cl.339-14) Our invention relates to a cube tap and relates moreparticularly to a cube tap wherein there are provisions for a groundconnection. The cube tap of this invention is of substantially the samesize as the cube taps ordinarily used.

Heretofore, cube taps have not been utilized with a ground connectionand since the cube tap should be small in size, it is important that thecurrent carrying terminals and the ground connectors be properly spaced,in order that the size of the cube tap should not be unduly large.

It therefore, is lan lobject of our invention to provide a cube tapwherein provisions may be made to insert a cube tap in a receptaclehaving provision for a ground connection, and wherein three additionalplug attachments, each having two live terminals and one groundedterminal may be connected thereto.

Another `object of our invention is to provide a cube tap wherein goodelectrical connections will be made with a grounded electricalconvenience outlet or a grounded receptacle.

Another object of our invention is to porvide a multioutlet cube tap forconnection to a single, grounded outlet, whereby three groundedelectrical circuits having prearranged terminals as to com'guration andsize may be electrically connected to the multi-outlet.

Another object of our invention is to provide a cube tap with a groundconnection having three outlet connections wherein the cube tap may.be'inserted in a two outlet convenience wall receptacle wherein thethree cube tap outlets may be used. i

Another object of our invention is to provide a cube tap with a groundconnection having three outlet connections wherein two cube taps may beinserted inthe two outlets of a convenience wall receptacle whereby sixcube tap outlets are available for use. i

Other objects of our invention are to provide an improvide device of thecharacter described, that is .easily and economically produced, which issturdy in construction, and which is highly eihcient in operation.

With the above and related objects in view, our invention consists inthe details of construction and combination of parts, as will be morefully understood from the following description, when read inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. l is an end view of a tri-plug embodying our invention.

FIG. 2 is a side View showing the tri-plug in FIG. l.

FIG. 3 is another end view of the tri-plug.

FIG. 4 is another side view of the tri-plug.

FIG. 5 is a view of one shell or casing taken along the line 5 5 of FIG.2.

FIG. 6 is a view of the other shell or casing taken along the line 6 6,of FIG. 2.

FIG. 7 is a sectional view taken along the line 7 7 of FIG. 5

FIG. 8 is a sectional view taken along the line 8 8 of FIG. 6.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view taken along the line 8 8 of FIG. 6, withIground contacts shown in position in dotted lines.

FIG. l0 is `a fragmentary sectional view showing the live circuitcontacts.

illustrated fic FIG. l1 is a fragmentary sectional view taken along theline Il II of FIG. 3.

FIG. 12 is a sectional view taken along the line 12-12 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 13 is a perspective view of the cube tap.

FIG. 14 is the cube tap turned 90 to one side.

FIG. 15 is the cube tap turned 180 along another side.

FIG. 16 is a view of the cube tap looking from the front end.

FIG. 17 is a view of the cube tap turned another 90.'-

FIG. 18 is an exploded view of the terminals and ground connection.

FIG. 19 is a perspective view of one molded casing which forms the topportion of the tri-plug.

FIG. 20 is a perspective view of the bottom casing of the tri-plug.

FIG. 2l is a perspective View of a cube ytap wherein an intermediatemember may be used to insert the cube tap of FIG. l in a differentrelative position to'make all other outlets of the cube tap available.FIG. Z2 is a perspective view of a cube tap embodying our inventionwherein there is a flexible ground connection and wherein the externalplug connection is shifted to a different relative position within theprongs shown in FIG. 2.

`Referring to the drawings, wherein similar reference characters referto similar parts, we show a multi-outlet or tri-plug or cube tap whichis an electrical device to be inserted into an electrical receptaclehaving a ground terminal whereby cube tap terminals C1, C2 engage thelive terminals of a tandem blade circuit and wherein there is a groundconnection D.

The top molded cavity, generally designated as A, interiits with asupplementary bottom cavity, generally designated as B, to form theshell for the multi-outlet. The outside faces of the cube tap, whenassembled, has been designated as F1, F2, F3, F4, FS and F6. The face F4(FIG. 15 has two terminals C1 and C2 and Va ground terminal D projectingtherefrom.

Within the cavities A and B, there are suitable chambers for housing theinterconnected terminals T1, TZ and T3, which `serve as one live side ofthe circuit and the other live side of the circuit has theinterconnected terminals T4, T5 and T6 (FIG. 1S). The interconnectedground terminals are .designated as D1, D2 and D3, which areelectrically connected to the U-shaped ground prong D.

Upon the face F1, Athere is a provision for openings 10, 12 and Iii. TheD-shaped opening 10 is adapted to receive a connector wherein there is aground contact and the openings 12 and 14 are adapted to receive theterminals forA the live side of the circuit. The face F2 (FIG. 16) hasopenings 16, 18 and 20 therein, with the D-shaped opening adapted toreceive the ground terminal of a plug connector and the parallelrectangular openings 1S and 2t) being adapted to receive the prongs ofthe live side of the circuit. The face F3 (FIG. 15) of the cavities Aand B has openings 22, 24 and 26 therein wtih the D- shaped .openingadapted to receive a ground terminal from a plug.

It is to be observed that the opening I2 in the face F1 (see FIG. 13) ofthe cavities has a portion of the opening 12A in the bottom section Band an aligning portion in. the upper cavity A.

The recess 12A in the bottom B (FIG. 6) is a portion of the recess 12 asshown in FIG. 13.

In the bottom cavity B (FIGS. 6, 8 and 9) the D- shaped openings 16Dpermits the ground prong D to project therefrom.

The two cavities A and B of the cube tap are held together by at leasttwo screws` `designated as 10B and 12B which pass through openings C and12C inthe shell A and B. w

'Iihe interior of each shell has complementary mirror -iinage parts toalign vthe terminals T1, T2, T3A and the Between the barriers G1 and G2are the grounding contacts D1, D2 and D3, as shown in FIG. 10. To oneside of the barrier G2 are the terminals T1, T2 and T3. One side of thebarrier G1 and the face F2 are the terminals T4, T5 and T6. Theterminals T1 and T2 show that they may J be of a double wiping contactand they may be held together by virtue Vof rivets 32. The recesses inthe casing wherein the liber arc barriers are held are designated as 28and 30 respectively. Y

It is to be noted that the grounding contacts and terminals arecorrelated in such fashion that the cube tap is of small size andprovides adequate spacing between the terminals so that there will be noarcing between the terminals and the grounding and furthermore that allYthe members provide for ready access to one another.

Under certain conditions it may be desirable to have the terminalsarranged so that they lie in the same plane instead of in parallelplanes such as shown in FIG. 13 as an example.

In the arrangement of the conventional wall convenience outlet VJ, theholes on the outlets Hand J2 for the recepthe same plane. When the cubetap illustrated in FIG. 2,

is used, then one of the outlets of the cube tap would not vide in FIG.21 an auxiliary `intermediate connection whichY is designated as Gwherein the cube tape may be rotated 90 with respect to the wallconvenience outlet receptacle J1 or J2; i

In FIG'. 22 we have removed the rigid ground connection D and inserted ailexible ground connection H having a lJ-shaped holding lug H1, whichmay be attached to the wall convenience outlet J by means of a holdingscrew H2. A more important change has been the twisting of the terminalsC1 and C2 to a position of 90 of that shown in FlGS. 2 and 21. In otherwords, the cube tap of FIG. 2l has the same face F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 andY F6, but upon the face F4 the terminals C1 and C2 haveV been turned andthe face F5 which is blank would be adjacent Yto a second cube tap thatmay be inserted in the second receptacle I2 of the two convenience`outlet wall receptacles.y Y

With this construction is provided, in FIGS. 21 and 22, the ability toutilize the cube tap so that all the receptacles may be properly used onthe cube tap. It should be noted that the prongs C1 and C2 of theconvenience Vtion of the cube tap prongs usually are arranged to lie inelectrical contacts D1, D2'and D3 for receiving a complementary groundprong are electrically connected to the strip 38 by means of a rivet 40.The iirst electrical contact D1 is connected to the strip 3S to projectdownwardly as FIG. 12 is viewed. An intermediate angle strip 42 has thesecond electrical Contact D2 connected to its free end. The thirdelectrical contact D3 is joined to both an end oi Vthe strip 38 and oneleg of the angle 42 whereby the same holding rivet holds the thirdelectrical contact D3, the angle 42 and the strip 38 together.

In FIG. 18, the prong C1 comprises a strip of electrical conductingmaterial to which is attached a pair of contact pieces 43 and 44. Thetwo pieces 43 and 44 are spaced apart by the strip but are held togetherby a square rivet and a second rivet 32 holds the two pieces 43 and 44together to provide greater resiliency.

Although our invention has been described in considerable detail, suchdescription is intended as being illustrative rather than'lirniting,since the invention may be variously embodied, and the scope of theinvention is to be determined as claimed.

We claim:

1. A cube tap comprising a cubical housing of electrically insulativematerial, said housing comprising a pair of cubical sections releasablyconnected to each other in face-to-face engagement and havingcomplementary recesses therein which are in mating relationship witheach other to form a plurality of internal compartments, an electricalcontact assembly within each of said compartments, each of said contactassemblies comprising four interconnected contact elemcnts wherein eachelement is substantially perpendicularly odset from the elementsadjacent thereto and extends in an opposite direction from the elementopposed thereto, three of the elements of each assembly each comprisingopposing, spaced tongues positioned within said housing and being inalignment with corresponding access apertures in said housing while thefourthelemer'it on each assembly includes a contact which extendsoutwardlyof said housing, one of said outwardly extending contacts beinga ground contact while each of the other outwardly extending contacts isa live electrical contact, saidassembly with said ground contact being acenter assembly Vpositioned between a pair of separable substantiallyrigid spaced insulating partitions, one of the other assemblies Vbeingspaced from said center assembly by one of said partitions and anotherof said otherassem-` l blies being spaced from said center assembly bythe other receptacle intert with the openings 34 and 36 of eachpartition.

, 2. The cube tap of claim l wherein said ground contact is a rigidprong.

3. The cube tap of claim 1 wherein said ground contact is a flexiblecable provided with a connecting means at its outer end.

,Y References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,615,302 Hartmann Jan. 25, 1927vv 2,298,342 .Brug oct. 13, 1942v2,682,646` Hubbell June 29, 1954,y 2,792,561 VCohen May 14, 1957-FoRErGN PATENTS 466,935 Great Britain June s, 193'/ 684,110 GreatBritain Dec. 10,1952- OTHER REFERENCES Barth (publication): ElectricalConstruction and Maintenance, page 166, lul'y 1954,

